Education Bill

I shall speak also to Amendments 140 and 141 in this group. I was fascinated by the previous debate on admissions, when many wise and challenging things were said. My noble friend Lady Morris, I think, said that we have a system littered with schools trying to do their best but fighting a losing battle because of other local schools selecting pupils. We heard some comments about schools selecting parents, rather than the other way round. I know that the Church of England has recently been looking at this and I hope for some clarification on its thinking. The Minister talked about autonomy and variety. Autonomy and variety will not solve all the issues in front of us concerning admissions. I want to talk about faith schools. My first amendment to the Academies Act 2010 would prevent academies and free schools with a religious character discriminating on admissions; my second would prevent voluntary-controlled faith schools which convert to academy status from increasing the priority of religious criteria in their admissions policies. As my noble friend Lady Hughes said earlier, admission to school is extremely important. We know that many state-funded faith schools use their legal privileges to have highly selective admissions criteria, giving preference to the children of parents with particular beliefs. Academy schools which have converted from state-maintained faith schools are, of course, their own admissions authority, and they religiously discriminate up to 100 per cent in admissions. Free schools with a religious character may discriminate in up to 50 per cent of admissions. Will that remain the case? Will that be the case for looked-after children who do not have the same faith as the school they want to go to? Discrimination by faith schools can cause segregation along both religious and socio-economic lines. Professor Ted Cantle, author of a report into community cohesion in Blackburn, describes religious schools as, "““automatically a source of division””," in the town. In other areas, faith schools that are their own admission authorities are 10 times more likely to be highly unrepresentative of their surrounding area than faith schools where the local authority is the admission authority. Separating children by religion, class and ethnicity is totally opposed to the aim of social cohesion. In addition, voluntary aided faith schools have, on average, 50 per cent fewer pupils requiring free school meals than community schools. Pupils starting at faith schools are also, on average, more academically able than pupils starting at inclusive schools. That is because faith schools’ selection criteria mean that they usually—not always, but usually—take fewer deprived children and more than their fair share of children of ambitious and wealthier parents. I share an office with a colleague from Northern Ireland, who constantly asks me: ““Have we not learnt the lessons from faith schools in Northern Ireland?””. All schools should include and educate pupils of all beliefs together so that they can learn about and from each other, instead of being segregated by their religion. Prejudice was mentioned last week in Committee. I heard that homophobic bullying is more likely to happen in faith schools. The amendment to the Equality Act 2010 will stop maintained schools—voluntary and foundation schools—with a religious character from discriminating in admissions by removing the opt-out from the Act. Any religious discrimination in admissions is against the ideal of an open and inclusive school system. No state-funded faith school, including academies, should be permitted to discriminate in their admissions on religious grounds in any circumstances. My first amendment would rule out religious discrimination in admissions to all new academies. If the complete prohibition of religious discrimination in the new academy and free school system cannot be achieved, and my first amendment does not pass, my second amendment would ensure that voluntarily controlled schools which had not previously been permitted to discriminate could not begin to discriminate on conversion to academy status. I beg to move.